Voyager 1: Outward Bound

(From NASA/JPL-Caltech, used w/o permission.)
"This artist's concept shows NASA's Voyager spacecraft against a field of stars in the darkness of space. The two Voyager spacecraft are traveling farther and farther away from Earth, on a journey to interstellar space...."

Voyager 1 is outside the heliopause, outward bound. The robot spacecraft is still about one seventh as far from Earth's star as Sedna will be about 11,400 years from now. That'll be the year 13476, give or take: by which time humanity may have long since caught up with the Voyager probes, and that's almost another topic.

About 40,000 years from now, Voyager 1 will be 1.6 light years from AC +79 3888, and a tad farther from Sol, Earth's star. Gliese 445 is a shorter name for AC +79 3888, and whatever name you prefer: it'll be about 3.45 light-years from Sol when Voyager 1 goes past. You'll still need a telescope to see it, if you're on Earth at the time: which is unlikely, come to think of it.

The Lemming didn't find any planets listed for Gliese 445, but scientists are still sorting through data: and nowhere near finished with collecting more about Earth's neighbors. They'll probably be adding new planets to their catalogs for years. Decades. Centuries. Millennia. Longer.

Anyway, right now here are some pretty good places to check out if you're looking for nearby planets:

• The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
  The exoplanet TEAM
• NASA Exoplanet Archive
  CalTech
• SIMBAD Astronomical Database
  Strasbourg University

"Nearby" on a cosmic scale, of course.

Here's what Gliese 445 looks like, as seen through a telescope on Earth. That colored ring isn't part of the star: someone drew it on the photo so you'd know which dot is yet another name for AC +79 3888. Actually, it's an abbreviation of Gliese, and the Lemming's mind is wandering.


(From Caltech/Palomar Observatory, via NASA, used w/o permission.)
"At the center of this image is the star AC +79 3888, also known as Gliese 445, located 17.6 light-years from Earth. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is on a trajectory out of our solar system, is headed toward an encounter with AC +79 3888. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will be closer to this star than our own sun.

"The image was taken by the Oschin Schmidt Telescope near San Diego, Calif., on April 22, 1998. This telescope is operated by the California Institute of Technology and Palomar Observatory."

It occurs to the Lemming that Voyager 1 may not make it to its flyby of Gliese 445. 40,000 years is a long time, humans are already working on a prototype warp drive, and that robot spaceship would make a dandy exhibit for some museum.

More:

• "Voyager: The Interstellar Mission"
  JPL/NASA
• "Gliese 445"
  Wikipedia
• "Heading toward Gliese 445"
  NASA Mission Pages, Voyager (September 12, 2013)
• "NASA Voyager Statement about Competing Models to Explain Recent Spacecraft Data"
  NASA Mission Pages, Voyager (August 15, 2013)
• "Voyager Solar System 'exit' debated"
  Jonathan Amos, BBC News (March 20, 2013)

Slightly-related posts:

• Peering into vastness
  • "Nearby Worlds, and a Cosmic Horizon"
    A Catholic Citizen in America (January 3, 2014)
    Particularly
    • Plato, Aristotle, and Getting a Grip
    • Across the Horizon, Toward Infinity
  • "Gliese 677C, Revisted: Three Super-Earths in the Habitable Zone"
    (June 28, 2013)
  • "DNA, Voyager 1, Habitable Worlds, and the Universe"
    A Catholic Citizen in America (March 22, 2013)
    Particularly
    • "We've Never Been There Before...."
  • "GJ 667Cc: Heavier than Earth, Maybe About as Warm"
    (February 6, 2012)
  • "Two Decades Later: Voyager 1 Flyby of Triton, August 21, 1989"
    (August 21, 2009)
• Getting there
  • "Warp Drive: Silly as Thinking People can Fly"
    (May 17, 2013)
  • "Warp Drive: Imagined and Real (Maybe, Eventually)"
    A Catholic Citizen in America (May 24, 2013)
  • "Quantum Entanglement and a Babbling Lemming"
    (May 3, 2013)
  • "Another Step Closer to a Practical Warp Drive: Maybe"
    (November 30, 2012)
    Particularly
    • Travel to the Stars
    • Weird Physics, Warp Drive, News, and NASA
  • "Antimatter Rocket Motor: Physics, Straightforward; Engineering, Not So Much"
    (October 26, 2012)